Sandra reviewed Phase Six by Jim Shepard
Review of 'Phase Six' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
2 1/2 stars
This book started strong and lost it's way about 1/3 of the way in. There were too many characters and none of them were particularly developed or even believable or appealing as real people. They all felt like bit players. I would guess a pandemic/dystopian novel needs to follow a few people (heros) who the reader cares about on an emotional level, identifies with, roots for etc. There needs to be a visceral reaction to the gut-punch of the fright of infection and the unendurable existential angst one feels at the loss of human life. Not just, ho-hum, turn the page. These characters were cardboard cutouts and the choices they made were inexpicable at best. Some characters were left hanging, like the boy Aleq and we never get to know in an emotional, intuitive way, how he felt, what it was like to know the part he …
2 1/2 stars
This book started strong and lost it's way about 1/3 of the way in. There were too many characters and none of them were particularly developed or even believable or appealing as real people. They all felt like bit players. I would guess a pandemic/dystopian novel needs to follow a few people (heros) who the reader cares about on an emotional level, identifies with, roots for etc. There needs to be a visceral reaction to the gut-punch of the fright of infection and the unendurable existential angst one feels at the loss of human life. Not just, ho-hum, turn the page. These characters were cardboard cutouts and the choices they made were inexpicable at best. Some characters were left hanging, like the boy Aleq and we never get to know in an emotional, intuitive way, how he felt, what it was like to know the part he played in unleashing a pandemic; the loss of his entire family and friends of the village and way of life. In addition the science of the way the microbe worked went so far over my head that I'm not even sure how it worked to infect for one, how it used the dna splice, how that came about where it came from or if it was even physically possible in real world applications. Sounded like some gobble-de-gook blah blah blah to me.
Eh, this could have been fleshed out better and examined more closely the surreal feeling of the realization that the world is in deep doo-doo. The book is short so there was plenty of space to do this. Maybe the book wanted to portray the lack of time to come to terms with it all, I don't know.
It was ok.
